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Thomas Jefferson and the Mammoth Cheese some excerpts

The very nature of a wall further reconceptualizes First Amendment principles. A wall is a bilateral barrier that inhibits the activities of both the civil state and religion; this is in contrast to the First Amendment, which imposes restrictions on the civil state only. In short, a wall not only prevents the civil state from intruding on the religious domain but also prohibits religion from inuencing the conduct of civil government. The various First Amendment guarantees, however, were entirely a check or restraint on civil government, specifically Congress. The free press guarantee, for example, was not written to protect the civil state from the press; rather, it was designed to protect a free and independent press from control by the federal government. Similarly, the religion provisions were added to the Constitution to protect religion and religious institutions from interference by the federal government-not to protect the civil state from the inuence of religion. Any construction of Jefferson's wall that imposes restraints on entities other than civil government exceeds the limitations imposed by the First Amendment.

WallBuilders | Resources | The Importance of Morality and Religion ...

Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself and all it contains rather than do an immoral act. And never suppose that in any possible situation, or under any circumstances, it is best for your to do a dishonorable thing, however slightly so it may appear to you. Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly. Encourage all you virtuous dispositions, and exercise them whenever an opportunity arises, being assured that they will gain strength by exercise, as a limb of the body does, and that exercise will make them habitual. From the practice of the purest virtue, you may be assured you will derive the most sublime comforts in every moment of life, and in the moment of death. (Source: Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Albert Bergh, editor (Washington, D.C.: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Assoc., 1903), Vol. 5, pp. 82-83, in a letter to his nephew Peter Carr on August 19, 1785.)

The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the happiness of mankind. (Source: Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Albert Bergh, editor (Washington, D. C.: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Assoc., 1904), Vol. XV, p. 383.)

I concur with the author in considering the moral precepts of Jesus as more pure, correct, and sublime than those of ancient philosophers. (Source: Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Albert Bergh, editor (Washington, D. C.: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Assoc., 1904), Vol. X, pp. 376-377. In a letter to Edward Dowse on April 19, 1803.)

FBI Helps LC Restore Jefferson Draft Letter

Following is an article by the curator of a major exhibition at the Library that opens this month and runs through Aug. 22. A key document on view in "Religion and the Founding of the American Republic" (see LC Information Bulletin, May 1998), is the letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists, which contains the phrase "a wall of separation between church and state." With the help of the FBI, the draft of the letter, including Jefferson's obliterated words, are now known.

FT April 2003: The Faith of the Founding

Thomas Jefferson’s Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom (1779), submitted but not passed by the legislature until 1785, likewise picks up an explicitly Christian motif:

Well aware that . . . Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested His supreme will that free it shall remain, by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint: That all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as it was in his Almighty power to do, but to extend it by its influence on reason alone. . . .

We the General Assembly of Virginia do enact, that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

Then, since no Assembly can pass an irrevocable act that another Assembly, of equal powers, cannot rescind, Jefferson’s bill adds a deeper understanding of the ground of this act:

We are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present, or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.

Thus, in the acts put forth by Mason and Jefferson, the concept of natural right is argued for in the language of Jewish and Christian belief about the Creator, who wishes to be worshiped in spirit and truth. For this God, the arena of conscience is sacred, in such a way that the duty, and therefore the natural right, of the individual who stands in that arena is also sacred. In that sacred space that stands between the individual and the Creator, no state, society, or other human person dares to intervene.

Only Judaism and Christianity have a doctrine of God as Spirit and Truth, Who created the world in order to invite these creatures endowed with intelligence and conscience to enter into friendship with Him. Only the Jewish and Christian God made human beings free, halts the power of Caesar at the boundaries of the human soul, and has commissioned human beings to build civilizations worthy of the liberty He has endowed in them. So high is this God’s valuation of human liberty of conscience that, even though He has launched a divinely commissioned religion in history (in two Covenants, Jewish and Christian), He would not have either of these religions imposed by force on anyone. So devoted were the American founders to this understanding of religious liberty that, as Thomas Jefferson wrote in his Autobiography (1821), the authors of the Virginia Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom refrained from mentioning the exact name of the "holy author of our religion." Here is Jefferson’s explanation for the omission:

Where the preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the words "Jesus Christ," so that it should read, "a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion"; the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination.

Madison gives powerful Christian reasons for such forbearance. Alone among the religions of the world, Judaism and Christianity place so high a valuation upon religious liberty because of their own doctrine that the relation God seeks with humans is friendship.

WorldNetDaily: Thomas Jefferson: Deist or Christian?

...While Jefferson has been lionized by those who seek to drive religion from public life, the true Thomas Jefferson is anything but their friend. He was anything but irreligious, anything but an enemy to Christian faith. Our nation's third president was, in fact, a student of Scripture who attended church regularly, and was an active member of the Anglican Church, where he served on his local vestry. He was married in church, sent his children and a nephew to a Christian school, and gave his money to support many different congregations and Christian causes.

Moreover, his "Notes on Religion," nine documents Jefferson wrote in 1776, are "very orthodox statements about the inspiration of Scripture and Jesus as the Christ," according to Mark Beliles, a Providence Foundation scholar and author of an enlightening essay on Jefferson's religious life.

Jefferson, who gave his money to assist missionary work among the Indians, believed his "abridgement of the New Testament for the use of the Indians" would help civilize and educate America's aboriginal inhabitants. Nor did Jefferson cut all miracles from his work, as Beliles points out. While the original manuscript no longer exists, the Table of Texts that survives includes several accounts of Christ's healings.

Jefferson was a true friend of the Christian faith. But was he a true Christian? A nominal Christian – as demonstrated by his lifelong practice of attending worship services, reading the Bible, and following the moral principles of Christ – Jefferson was not, in my opinion, a genuine Christian.

Nonetheless, Jefferson's presidential acts would, if done today, send the ACLU marching into court. He signed legislation that gave land to Indian missionaries, put chaplains on the government payroll, and provided for the punishment of irreverent soldiers. He also sent Congress an Indian treaty that set aside money for a priest's salary and for the construction of a church.

Most intriguing is the manner in which Jefferson dated an official document. Instead of "in the year of our Lord," Jefferson used the phrase "in the year of our Lord Christ." Christian historian David Barton has the proof – the original document signed by Jefferson on the "eighteenth day of October in the year of our Lord Christ, 1804."

The Supreme Court ruled in 1947 that Jefferson's wall of separation between church and state "must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach." Judging from the record, it looks like the wall some say Tom built is, in fact, the wall Tom breached.

The real Thomas Jefferson, it turns out, is the ACLU's worst nightmare.